NOW & THEN
1413: Henry V was crowned in Westminster Abbey, aged 25.
1710: Copyright had its statutory beginnings with the Copyright Act of 1709, called the Statute of Anne, came into effect, recognising the position of authors for the first time.
1820: The first British settlers arrived in South Africa, at Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth.
1829: Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Bill.
1849: The safety pin was patented after US inventor Walter Hunt had made it in only three hours – selling the rights in order to pay off a $15 debt.
1858: Big Ben, the Westminster clock tower bell, was cast in Whitechapel. It weighs 13.5 tons.
1864: Archduke Maximilian of Austria accepted title of Emperor of Mexico.
1917: Vimy Ridge, in Northern France, was taken by Canadian forces with heavy losses during the Battle of Arras.
1924: The first book of crosswords was published in New York by Simon & Schuster.
1925: F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published.
1932: Paul von Hindenburg was re-elected German president over Adolf Hitler.
1945: American troops liberated Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany.
1955: David Blakely, a 24-yearold racing driver, was shot dead in North London by Ruth Ellis, for which she was hanged.
1960: The American Civil Rights Bill was passed by US Senate.
1963: United States atomic submarine Thresher failed to surface after a deep dive off Cape Cod, with the loss of 129 lives.
1972: Britain, United States, Soviet Union and 46 other countries signed convention outlawing biological weapons.
1986: United States conducted nuclear test in Nevada desert in spite of growing protests among peace groups and strong Soviet campaign for nuclear test ban.
1988: Sandy Lyle became first British golfer to win the Masters tournament in Augusta, United States.
1989: The Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown, denounced Parliament as ludicrous, inefficient and potentially a deeply corrupt mechanism.
1992: Three people were killed and 90 were injured when an IRA post-election bomb caused devastation in the City of London.
1993: Chris Hani, general secretary of South African Communist Party and member of ANC national executive, was assassinated outside his home.
1994: United Nations aircraft bombed Serbian forces shelling the town of Gorazde, raising the risk of the West becoming involved in a full-scale conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
1995: Channel Tunnel builder Eurotunnel warned that it could be “overwhelmed” by debt service costs after a net loss of £387 million in 1994.
2010: Polish president Lech Kaczynski and senior political figures from the country were killed in a plane crash in Russia.
2014: A Public Health England report revealed that air pollution was responsible for ten times as many deaths in Scotland as